USA v. Steven Anderegg - 25-1354

Summary

AI law The defendant used Stable Diffusion, a text-to-image generative AI model, to create realistic sexual images of children, and the government charged him under a federal statute banning possession of such material. The district court dismissed the possession charge, ruling that under Stanley v. Georgia individuals have a First Amendment right to possess obscenity in their own home, even virtual CSAM produced without real children. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that existing Supreme Court precedent (Stanley and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition) controlled and required this outcome, even though the court expressed concern that advances in GenAI technology have complicated the legal lines drawn by those older cases. Practitioners should note this is a significant early appellate ruling addressing how generative AI-created content interacts with obscenity and child pornography law.

AI-drafted · Attorney-reviewed